Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Let me start by saying I have purchased 4 LED flashlights, 2- 1/4 speed cassette radios from C. Crane, 1 pocket MP3 radio recorder, 2 of the original C.Crane Free Play Dynamo radios an FM transmitter and I'm sure other things that don't come to mind right now. So I liked the quality of all their products. That is the reason I'm so disappointed in this product and here's why. 1. There's no indicator of any kind to let you know the Solar panel is charging, NOT GOOD! "An emergency radio you have to HOPE it's doing what it's suppose to do!" 2. If you can believe this, you can buy the optional wall charger BUT! they don't tell you, you can't run the radio with it plugged in, it's for charging purposes ONLY with the radio off! So you can't even use it till it's fully charged and that requires over night charging and that's as specific as they get. If you would like to know what happens if you turn on the radio while it's plugged in there's a very loud buzz and no signal of any kind comes over the speaker. As an added punishing bonus if you forget and leave the radio plugged in "too long" it will damage the internal battery pack. 3. Also they included a single 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper telling you as of Jan 2013 they have added a new chip for better radio reception which makes all the claims of run time meaningless in the manual. The chip is a real power drain and you get one minute of power for one minute of crank time. This makes the dynamo virtually useless unless you plan on turning the dynamo almost constantly. Who's arm can crank for 30 minutes to get 30 minutes of play time? IF none of these things matter to you then this is the radio for you.